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| "unfamiliar with history, with original sources." Tales of expats explicitly lean toward the negative, creating a sort of survivor's bias, amplifying the neg

| "unfamiliar with history, with original sources." Tales of expats explicitly lean toward the negative, creating a sort of survivor's bias, amplifying the negative presentation despite the fact that there were many more people who had positive experiences. This happens with Cuban expats as well, despite the millions of people that are supportive of the Cuban government; the perspective of those who "escaped" gets amplified into the mainstream Western discourse. For further justification, see the high rates of Soviet nostalgia that currently exist in Russia, as well as the majority who lived under the Soviet system saying that life was better back then.

credit_guy 5y ago
> he majority who lived under the Soviet system saying that life was better back then. They were at least 30 years younger. Healthier, stronger and better looking. But if you have a chance, can you ask them if they remember how many hours per day they were spending in line to buy food?
sershe 5y ago
Why would tales of expats skew negative? Expats tend to be better educated and come from more privileged segments of the populations. When an expat is complaining about how an engineer in Soviet union lives with his family in a 700sqft 1-bedroom and cannot afford a car, do you seriously think you are missing the counter-evidence from a better engineer living in Moscow suburbs with two cars? No, what you are actually missing is the evidence of a chemical factory worker living in a small town 25 miles from Moscow in a wooden cottage with no running water and wood stove for heat (that is a real person I personally knew ;)). The latter guy is not going to show up as an expat. There's a great 80ies rock song by Nautilus (I can't find a translation good enough to post) that really captures the essence of living under late socialist central planning, both in economic and political sense... for the former, it's not that it's chaotic or particularly malicious, it's that it's so laughably, pointless-ly mismanaged and pitiful. My family comes from probably top 5% of Soviet population by QoL (from Moscow and with some very minor connections due to someone in the family being a high ranking and respected engineer at Moscow subway), not at all anti-Soviet, and yet I can totally attest to that both from family stories and personal experience (e.g. the flats inherited from socialist times, the indirect evidence like books that I used to read as a kid that my family "obtained" 5-10 years in advance because you couldn't just go and buy good books, or habits that my parents and grandparents still have like not ever throwing away anything, even if it's broken and useless "in case you need it for something" [implying you cannot just go and buy something], using the healthcare system inherited from the Soviet times, etc.). It's really kinda hard to convey... there was a blog post here about "how it feels to be poor" in the US, and the guy was complaining about his tiny 900sqft apartment... I literally laughed out loud. Don't know much about Cuba, but there's no reason to believe it's any better. My favorite story about Cuba is a Canadian guy telling me he really likes Cuba, it's a great country, he visits all the time and it's really nice how any girl would sleep with you for a pack of cigarettes or a dinner ;) The "support" for the regimes is mostly a combination of propaganda, not knowing any better, and lack of opportunity to actually change anything turning people towards so called "inner emigration" into cynical/self-serving indifference, going thru the motions to either ignore or even abuse the system.

credit_guy 5y ago

> he majority who lived under the Soviet system saying that life was better back then. They were at least 30 years younger. Healthier, stronger and better looking. But if you have a chance, can you ask them if they remember how many hours per day they were spending in line to buy food?

sershe 5y ago

Why would tales of expats skew negative? Expats tend to be better educated and come from more privileged segments of the populations. When an expat is complaining about how an engineer in Soviet union lives with his family in a 700sqft 1-bedroom and cannot afford a car, do you seriously think you are missing the counter-evidence from a better engineer living in Moscow suburbs with two cars? No, what you are actually missing is the evidence of a chemical factory worker living in a small town 25 miles from Moscow in a wooden cottage with no running water and wood stove for heat (that is a real person I personally knew ;)). The latter guy is not going to show up as an expat. There's a great 80ies rock song by Nautilus (I can't find a translation good enough to post) that really captures the essence of living under late socialist central planning, both in economic and political sense... for the former, it's not that it's chaotic or particularly malicious, it's that it's so laughably, pointless-ly mismanaged and pitiful. My family comes from probably top 5% of Soviet population by QoL (from Moscow and with some very minor connections due to someone in the family being a high ranking and respected engineer at Moscow subway), not at all anti-Soviet, and yet I can totally attest to that both from family stories and personal experience (e.g. the flats inherited from socialist times, the indirect evidence like books that I used to read as a kid that my family "obtained" 5-10 years in advance because you couldn't just go and buy good books, or habits that my parents and grandparents still have like not ever throwing away anything, even if it's broken and useless "in case you need it for something" [implying you cannot just go and buy something], using the healthcare system inherited from the Soviet times, etc.). It's really kinda hard to convey... there was a blog post here about "how it feels to be poor" in the US, and the guy was complaining about his tiny 900sqft apartment... I literally laughed out loud. Don't know much about Cuba, but there's no reason to believe it's any better. My favorite story about Cuba is a Canadian guy telling me he really likes Cuba, it's a great country, he visits all the time and it's really nice how any girl would sleep with you for a pack of cigarettes or a dinner ;) The "support" for the regimes is mostly a combination of propaganda, not knowing any better, and lack of opportunity to actually change anything turning people towards so called "inner emigration" into cynical/self-serving indifference, going thru the motions to either ignore or even abuse the system.